Ottoman History -- 17th Century Ideas and Society

Ottoman Ways & Days

One of the longest
lasting states ( known in west as an Empire - not
in any Ottoman terms) in history. The Second wave in history
of a great Islamic Civilization. The Ottoman Empire appears not unlike the
U.S. except for its time period -- same groups, and political forces appear
-- as with most other civilizations in history.

Evliya Çelebi.

&

17th Century in Depth

Evliya Çelebi
Seyahatnâmesi Melek edited

What ran the Ottoman Empire from start to
finish was the degree on which application of adalet and ‘ilm were
produced positively. “Accompanying these two there were other important
attributes like generosity, piety, clemency, forbearance, etc. Byzantine ‘
mirror for princes’ also emphasize similar qualities like justice, philosophy,
fear of God, clemency and forbearance. “Mahmud Pasha, Mehmed II’s choice for
grand viser in 1472. Mahmud Pasha “ was ‘ the sun in the skies of sagacity’ and
‘a mine of both intelligence and wisdom.’” He wanted to be known as a warrior
and a scholar. ( Fame and Posthumous Legend Ch. 10)

In regards to “ The Question of the Ottoman
Decline” by Cemel Kafadar, “Gelibolulu Mustapha ‘Ali and Kātib Çelebi, lamented
“ the closing of the Ottoman mind” as a result of falling standards in higher
education and public letters or a lack of curiosity in the outside world.”

Ottomans at the end of this century suffer
their first territorial loss, but in contemporary writings, including the
Europeans at the time they are still a strong state and one cannot underestimate
their military.

Stage I begins with Murat I ( 1361-1389) a
‘unique’ twist on the Mongolian accession system. The Sultan has male children
the are placed in provinces with their own courts and military, and when Sultan
in old or dies the sons battle it out to the death and winner takes the
Sultanate.

Stage II Changes in Accession and Rule -
major factors

1566–74

SULTAN
SELIM II. Süleyman's
only surviving son [ he killed the other two because they were
following official rules to dispose an old Ottoman Ruler, but he
killed them and the spirit of the Ottoman powerbase] , often known
as Selim the Sot for his love of drinking, was not an active ruler.
He retired to the pleasures of the harem while his able grand
vezir, Mehmed Sokullu, ran the state, with growing input from
the palace women. Selim kept the princes in the harem rather
than placing them, as was customary until then, in military and
administrative posts that would gain them the experience needed to
rule. His practice, followed by subsequent sultans, weakened the
quality of the rulers. 3

Janissaries up rise because not getting
paid. Janissaries are growing in number and also gain alternative employment.

1574 Sultan Murad III allows only
eldest prince into province. The black eunuch corps allow much less likely to
have sex with blacks than with the older traditional white eunuchs. The Rise of
the Valid Sultan. Queen mother now an important influence in politics of the
Harem, and influence of groups of women.

[ advent of stage III] SULTAN MEHMED III.
Upon his accession following his father's death, he had his 19 brothers
strangled. He ended the traditional practice of sending princes to
governorships, confining them instead to special quarters in the harem known
as the kafes (the cage). Future sultans thus lacked the training and
experience of their predecessors. The period was dominated by the exhausting war
with the Habsburgs (1593–1606) and a series of great revolts in Anatolia.
3

1593-1606 The Long wars with the
Hapsburgs. No clear winners but the Ottomans suffer financially from the long
operations of war. Janissaries did not want to go to war, and so the
administration began to recruit ad-hoc peasants to make up the difference. The
peasants after seeing new places and how the military prestige is honored
including wealthy prospects of war life, they didn’t want to return to sedentary
lifestyle. “We don’t want to return to our villages.” Therefore the Çelali
Revolts, as they are called, took place and this made the Ottomans look bad to
the world. Why? It was brigandage in parts of Anatolia, leading to a mass
flight of peasants to the security of walled cities and mountains. It appeared
as disorder to the world. What were the Ottomans to do?

They said, well many of the New Islamic
peoples that came into the Empire after the 16th century conquests
noticed that the devshirme system was actually illegal according to Islamic law,
the shari’ah. In part because Christians were protected under the Islamic Law,
called people of the book, and the fact that the Turkish Ottomans ruling elite
were abducting them, enslaving them, mind-programming them, this was in fact
illegal. Wide discourse on this subject had a resounding effect. So the change
took place, partly because of discourse on this subject affected the ears of the
tolerant to this system, forcing them to change it, now came time to put forth a
‘ new light’ to the world and give this up to a safe appearing mode. The
Ottomans began to recruit other slaves from the caucuses and eastern Anatolia,
also many new inductions now were Islamic, Turkish, and some peasantry and
others that were initially forbade in the beginning from joining the janissaries
for reasons cited in other pages. This was in general and evolved not over
night, but throughout this period.

Stage III Overhaul in Accession and Rule
- major factors

Bold Administration Innovation

Sultan Ahmed I
( 1603-17) Mehmed
III's eldest surviving son, aged 13, inherited an empire besieged from without
by the Habsburgs and Safavids and from within by the Çelali rebels. All Princes
into the palace. Collateral and lineal lines of assent of rule are drawn up.
Major overall of legal field, the first major change since Mehmed ‘the
Conqueror’. The Kanunname, is now the Kanun-i-cedi. Janissaries are getting less
effective. Provincial cavalry getting militarily obsolete. Peasant army a new
system.

1603
Çelali revolts ( See ad-hoc military and leaders of peasant revolts)

He
gradually brought peace on all fronts. A deeply religious man, he attempted to
enforce the observance of religious duties and to crack down on the
consumption of wine.

Mustapha
I, Ahmed brother is over ruled ( collateral/first reign) in favor of Osman II.
He only rules three months and is considered mentally incapable ( Insanity).

Osman
II comes to
the thrown, at age 13 but exposes a changed Ottoman royal household and ruling
eleite. His reign end in the first regicide in Ottoman history, in the year
1622. “He restricted the privileges of the ulama and considered replacing
the Janissaries with a new army recruited from the Anatolian population. The
Janissaries revolted, killed him, and restored Mustafa I (May 1622).
3”

Mustafa I Second reign and everything in
Istanbul degenerates to incorporation. Revolts in Anatolia. What to do? Get a
competent leader in power.

Sultan Murad
IV 1623-40is chosen, of course, Mustapha was incapable. Ottoman lose
Baghdad to Shah Abbas, but in 1638 will get it back. Kadizade, came from the
ulema ruling party that they incited the janissaries as well who did away with
Osman, rule under Murad IV and rejuvenation takes place in some eyes. Crack
down on Coffee shops, and tobacco use and general intolerance of anyone other
than a strict Sunni. The name comes from the first Kadizade, named Kadizade
Mehmed Efendi, as he was appointed vais ( preacher) of Hagia Sofia. At the same
period, at the second greatest mosque in Istanbul is Sivasī Efendi, who is of
Sufi-like vais (preacher) of a more tolerant order. They fight verbally and some
members fight in the streets. Both are appointed by the same Sultan. The
Kadizade blames “ loss of purity of religion” on Sufis. ( See Cemel Kafadar/
Harvard).

Kadizade Mehmed Efendi,
some call conservative, but this implies that these were the practices in the
old days. In the old days there are many episodes of Sufi patronage of Sultans,
and other high officials. This is too lengthy to cite, but I will try to provide
a link. Jalal al-Din, otherwise known as Rumi, was an inspiration to the early
Ottomans. He wrote in Persian, and considered Christens and Jews as part of the
fold. His enormous work including poetry is considered the Persian Qu’ran and is
cited by the elite in Islam to know how to recite in company his work, thus
showing a educated intelligence. We will see also the importance of Sufism in
the 17th century below with a grand viser and other Ottoman citizens.
Other aspects of the Kadizade were crack down on Muslim establishments that
catered to drug use, ideal chat, slander and sedition deans, called
coffeehouses. This is outside the religious spectrum and most notably a social
concern. For the people that want to delve deeply into this subject, the ulema
were unpleased that at night, this was a new thing; traditionally people either
went to a mosque or religious center for companionship and worship. With the
onset of the coffeehouses the people began to go to them instead of the
traditional nightly outings. This then bled over into the day as notable said
they needed their coffee first before prayers. His followers gained political
influence. Sometimes Murad supported them and sometimes he didn’t.

Köprülü line of vizierates begun in the 1560s

These ulema ( the kadizadelis) went a little
too far in their crackdown on sufu orders, calling them illegitimate religions
and south bribery and violence to force their politics. With the new grand viser
Mehmend Köprülü, he put a stop to this as he was initially not concerned of
religious as much as political sureties of the empire, and thus he took away
their property and banished them in 1656.

1635 Raven campaign – see Evilya.

1638 saw the reconquest of Baghdad by the
Ottomans.

1651 The Aghas rise and then dictatorship of
the Agas, as Namia reports, Imposed goods on the shopkeepers, and some raided
profits of the state during the Dasni Mirza episode, as highlighted in Evliya’s
accounts too, depressed state and public moral. At this juncture there arose, as
well, a rift between the rulers and the ruled. “ Naima’s description of
complaints of the citizens of the capital to the injustice of the Aghas, the
Aghas reply almost in fashion of the myth quote of ‘ let them eat cake’ of
Marie Antoinette of France’s fame, “’This is a city for the rich, not the poor;
if you can’t bear the expense [ meaning nourishing food including meat that was
inflated unjustly from Aghas hold of the treasury], go back to your homes in the
provinces and content yourselves with cracked wheat and porridge.’ Incidents
such as this assessed in the light of other basic failures of the government -
neglect of security of the capital city and its exposing the populace of the
effects of the Venetian blockades – contributing to a confidence crisis of
growing proportions. According to Evilya, only an honest government could resume
the credibility gap. (Dankoff)

Sultan Mehmed IV 1648-87. Ibrahim, the Mad’s
son came to power while still a boy, and his first eight years as a sultan were
marked by political disorder in the capital and the provinces, domination by the
military officers, and financial crisis. In 1656, after a revolt

1656-61

‘Mehmed Koprulu's term as grand vezir.
Born in Albania (in 1575), Koprulu entered government service and held numerous
positions that gained him an intimate familiarity with the workings of Ottoman
government. Despite his advanced years, he approached his new post with brutal
vigor. He cracked down on the Kadizade movement of conservative ulama, executed
rebellious soldiers and officials, purged the court, balanced the state budget,
and broke the Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles. When he died (Oct. 31,
1661), his son succeeded him, establishing the rule of a dynasty of grand
vezirs that dominated the state until the end of the century’.
3

1656-58 Reassertion of control over
Transylvania ( Rakoczy)

Significant
Date and Significant Change in World Outlook

1683 Second siege of Vienna,
a drive to resume the old conquering ways by the Köprülü line of
vizierates begun in the 1560s, was a massive defeat and humiliation for the
Ottomans. Over 100,000 troops. Right after the defeat, Mustapha Köprülü and Vani
Efendi, the third Kadizade, were executed for the responsibility of the failure.
This was not a loss, but just an end of the drive to expand. The war had
significance rhetoric, it was called on both sides the “War for Earth.” This
defeat and the coming Carlowitz Treaty (1699), with the evacuation of Hungary
and Transylvania, the Ottomans sees themselves not as center of the universe (
See cosmology) but just as another state among others in the world. Still in
Europe and contemporary writings, the Ottomans are still considered a military
threat, and in the future they will have victories against, the Hapsburgs,
Poland and Russia. Köprülü era ends.

Ottoman
Forces Routed and first real significant Loss of Territory

1684 the Europeans see a weakness and try to
exploit it, now gaining support a Holy Alliance attacks including Hapsburgs,
Venice Poland and Russia ( Peter the Great). Russia joins attack on Crimean
Tartars.

The evacuation of Hungary and Transylvania
(except Banat of Temesvar) cause a crisis in the other provinces of mass
population migration. The Ottomans sue for peace, the British mediate and Peter
wants the Ottomans to promises to refurbish the Orthodox churches in Palestine,
by they say “ no way.” This snub will have implications for a long time even
with Ottoman future victories over the Russians. They will not forget this. This
issue will emerge later, as it was really not anything to do with war, but
general goodhardiness of allowing the ‘ people of the book’ to have a decent
play to worship. Still the Ottomans are a major power, and contemporary writings
still reflected this even in Europe.

-- Morea ( Greece) to Venice

-- Podolia to Poland

1699 Treaty of Carlowits see above.

1718 Peace of Passarowitz, the Ottomans lose
territory of Belgrade to the Hapsburgs, but get it back again in 1736
with victories against the Hapsburgs and the Russians. After this there is a
long period of peace to 1768. Belgrade was the place for food production, cannon
production, biscuit production and arms productions. It was a very important
city.

What other things are going on in the 17th century?

Mollaships were prestigious big city
judgeships. One had options when leaving the general school years of the
medreses; one could be a judge and make more money in the early stages of a
career then a school teacher. For example, a kadi could make 25 akhas per day
compared to a school teacher who could only make as much as 20 akhas per day.
However, to continue school at the graduate level and upwards one needed to find
a patron. If one was fortunate they could get granted a mollaship or at best
become later on after observance and reputation Sheik of Islam, or the chief
mufti, meaning the head of Istanbul the capital. This job paid well and was the
most prestigious, but more risky as there were of course fewer available
positions. There were many kadiships needed all over the lands. Many were placed
for life in a village, but in a prominent place in the provinces, like a larger
town, the Kadi was moved so roots could not be established. The Pashsa would
usually appoint them when a position came up for a replacement. The kadis
decision could never be in dispute. Once the ruling is made, that is final.
However, one cannot reverse the kadis ruling, but one could attack his
character, and appeal to a higher representative, all the way up to the kadi-asker
then onto the imperial divan. The local peasant in theory had access to the
imperial council and if they changed the ruling, then the kadis decision was no
longer binding. With a large population and other immediate concerns of the
divan with international relations, one can say that days of the week to hear
cases was taxing upon them. This was part of the adalet system. Molla feneri was
the first chief mufti and he put Bayezīd I in his place and helped change the
school system for copying books for a better education, showing how important
education was to the early Ottomans. One can see a change after the conquering
of the Arab lands. See (Kafadar, ‘The Quesiton of the Ottomans Decline’).

The Rise of Intellectualism

Cemel Kafadar” The Question of the
Ottomans Decline.”(Harvard),Katib Çelebi,” the closing of the Ottoman mind” was an
observation and, “As a result of falling standards of higher education and
public letters and lack of curiosity in the outside world.”

One Sees the importance when one looks to
Molla Feneri, courage to stand up to Beyazīd I, and state the importance of
schools and how he changed the system so the students could copy books one day a
week.

Metin Ibrahim Kunt shows Ethnic regions, in
this case Albanians and cins playing a leading role in high official
appointments. This lurks back to times when meritocracy was the kul system and
mainly Christians made up the bulk of the elite.

Subject and point:

Cincerity (cin)

1. Cins solidarity is one factor in the
Ottoman politics. It was a significant factor from an exchange in 1658 between
Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the grand viser, and Melek Ahmend Pahsa, one of the
prominent visers. The topic of conversation was the revolt led by Abaza Hasan
Pahsa; the grand viser asked Melek Ahmed Pasha if he would fight against Abasa
Hasan, since they were both Abaza. Melek replied that he would fight against any
enemy of the Sultan, but the fact that such a question was asked at all
indicated the significance of cins solidarity.

Remembering their pasts? The Slave and the
Memory of Freedom.

Metin Ibrahim Kunk: Solidarity in the
Ottoman Establishment.

Köprülü built a mosque, a school in the village of Ruznik in
Albania, which he specified as his ‘ original home’ (vatan-I aslî).

Sokollu Mehmed Pahsa, was Bosnian by origin, built the bridge
on the Drina and put caravanasary and shops there.

Kara Mustapha Pasha, leader of the Vienna campaign also an
Albanian. Did cins, play a role in early 17th century high
official appointments?

Evilya mentions his mother from Caucasus, was sister of Melek
Ahmed Pasha’s mother; furthermore these two ladies were related to the
mother of the two Pahsas.

Adalet

What Runs the Empire?

Ethics in Government

‘Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman’
Dankoff

Evilya’s account of seventeenth century
Ottoman politics makes oblique reference to this issue, which preoccupied many
of his contemporaries. The need for ethics in government became an increasingly
insistent theme in Ottoman Political writing beginning with the treaties Asaf-name
by Sultan Süleyman I’s grand vizer Lufti Pasha. Evilya, in his role as sultanic
adviser and companion (musahib), frequently expresses his revulsion at the moral
corruption that flourished at the Ottoman court and his administration for those
who resisted corruption. In Book I of the Seyahat-name (68b.29f[243]) he
identifies two religious leaders, both of them spiritual advisers to the Sultan
(imam-i sultani), as formative influences on his own intellectual development.
The first of these, his namesake Evilya Mehmed Efendi ( d. 1045/1645), is
admired in the standard biographies as a paragon of personal integrity who
scrupulously executed the terms of a trusteeship. The second, Yusuf Efendi,
served as tutor to Sultan Ibrahim I’s son, three of whom ( Mehmed IV, Süleyman
II, and Ahmed II) were ultimately to success to the throne. Evilya’s eulogy of
Melek Ahmed Pahsa is in a like vein: Melek’s reliance on “ the ulema, the pious
şeyhs, the dervishes, the weak and the poor”--- that is, the humble and the
community minded , as opposed to the social –climbing coterie with palace
connections – erned him Evilya’s respect.

Similarly, Evilya’s criticism of the high
handed attitude of the sultan’s servitors (künkâr kulu), with their supercilious
and unfeeling treatment of the commoners (halk), echoes concerns voiced by
contemporary historians. Silent acceptance of such behavior undermined the
credibility of the sultan’s claim to rule in accordance with a strict standard
of justice and equity (adalet). These writers expressed their determination that
fundamental tenants if Ottoman administration not be sacrificed to the whims of
such self styled dignitaries, who were themselves no more than coarse upstarts.
The general feeling of outrage at the excess of the palace favorites, in
particular the Aghas or high public officials, described in Namia’s account of
the Dasni Mirza episode of August 1651 (Seban 1061), is also of the depressed
state of public morale at the height of the “dictatorship of the Aghas” during
Mehmed IV’s minority gives telling evidence of the rife that had emerged between
rulers and the ruled at this juncture in Ottoman history.

Although the Aghas [ kudde Kethuda and Bektas Begi] had already
raided all the sources of profit belonging to the state, they were still unsated,
but coveted even the poor morsels of the needy. They even dared to interfere
with the regime of guaranteed market prices (narh) Thus, while the official
price of mutton was eight aspers per okka, they raised it to thirteen. In
addition, they admonished the sheep drovers throughout the empire to deliver the
sheep form Erzurum and the other Anatolian provinces, and also from Rumelia and
the Moldavian and Wallachian principalities, to the agents dispatched by them
from the capital. In consequence, the funds for the sheep purchases distributed
among the governors and other officials of those provinces were mostly furnished
by the Aghas in Istanbul. These funds were exchanged for sheep which were then
conveyed- sometimes more dead than alive – to Istanbul where the Aghas disposed
of them as they saw fit, keeping the excessive profits all to themselves. They
also controlled the flow of Bursa silk and dimity, as well as Chios mastic and
halali cloth, which was forwarded without interruption and by the bailful from
Baghdad and Damascus at the hands of the frontier commanders.

They imposed these goods on the shopkeepers of Istanbul at a
price three times their natural value, and refused to allow anyone outside their
narrow circle to participate in this profitable trade. The inhabitants of the
city began to complain about the high cost of bread, meat, and other basic
provisions, but when they submitted petitions to the authorities, their
complaints went unheard. They were given nonsensical answers instead, calculated
to turn their hearts against the sultan, to the effect that: “ This is a city
for the rich, not for the poor; if you cannot bear the expense, go back to your
homes in the provinces and content yourselves with cracked wheat and porridge.”
Others among the Aghas’ devotees—according to the adage, “ The emir speaks
truth!”” – joined them as accomplices and addressed comments of the following
tenor [ to vizier, Melek Ahmend Pasha]: “Your excellency, a pack of country
yokels (etrak) abandoned their fields and came to enjoy the delights of the city
where meat and other delicacies were to be had for the asking. Why should they
shy from it now, just because it costs fifteen aspers? If they don’t like it,
let them go back where they came from!” - Namia

Incidents such as the Dasni Mirza episode of
1651 – assessed in the light of other basic failures of the government, such as
its neglect of the security of the capital city and its exposing the populace to
the effects of the Venetian blockades—contributed to a confidence crises of
growing proportions. In the opinion of Evilya and a number of is contemporaries,
the credibility gap confronting the sultanate during the 1650s could be closed
only by the resumption of honest government.

For the proponents of government, statesmen
belonged to two classes, the virtuous and the morally corrupt. No one, no even
the sovereign himself, was exempt for being tarred with the brush of these
muckraking reformists. For example, another of Mehmed IV’s advisor-companion,
the prominent historian Mehmed Solak-zade ( his nickname was Hem-demi,
meaning one who was constantly in the sultan’s company), censured the recently
deposed Sultan Ibrahim I for his unconscionable preoccupation with his personal
comfort and luxury at a time when his people were suffering hardship. The same
historian praised the sultan’s “good advisor” Kara Mustapha ( executed in
1053/1644) for his generous contributions of personal funds toward the building
of charitable institutions (hayrat) at sites scattered throughout the empire,
from the two shores of the capital at Galata and Usküdar to the Hungarian
frontier (Egri) and the far reaches of Anatolia (Sivas Artukabad and
Çorlu-Kuruçay). Similarly Evilya frequently mentions Melek Ahmend Pahsa’s
charitable institutions, such as erance from an illness, an his summation eulogy
he highlights Melek’s public generosity along with abstinence of his private
life.

Evliya’s character of his patron’s second
wife, Fatma Sultan, besides being an entertaining satire on the ways of
Istanbul’s social elite, also points out by way of negative example the
disastrous effects on Ottoman policy of a leadership insensitive to the
condition of the poor and unaware of their own obligation to nurture those less
fortunate than themselves. Compassion (Ar. Shafaqa, Tk. Şefkat) was the chief
prerequisite for all office holders, according to Islamic principles. Ottomans
society was one of self-made men—Evilya’s own career amply demonstrates this-
but only through universal recognition on an ethic stressing public service,
generosity in patronage, and loyalty on the part of the beneficiaries of
patronage could such a system become and remain workable. Evilya’s insistence on
his own incorruptibility—as in his altercation with Melek’s jealous servitors at
the end of Chapter 8; or in his fictional but revealing portrayal of dervish
Sunneti in Chapter 4, who he makes instruct the rowers to “ bear witness” that I
refused to accept the goldpieces and that I distributed them among you, so that
the pasha will feel peace of mind, and his heart will be free on any evil
suspicion regarding Evilya Çelebi – should be seen in this light.

Evilya’s view on moral duties and financial
obligations incumbent on all holders of high office or prestigious social
positions is made explicit in the section devoted to the character and
accomplishments of Melek Pasha’s first wife, Kaya Sultan. He celebrates Kaya and
her husband’s generosity to their retainers, and Kaya’s munificent beneficiation
of 20,000 gold pieces on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. And he excoriates
the powerful and –in his opinion—morally flawed grand vizer Köprülü Mehmed
Pasha for his confiscatory bent, openly criticism him of ordering the
confiscation (müsadere) of the deceased princess’s worldly goods ( Some of them
her husband’s rightful inheritance) before her body was yet cold.

The public service ethic was such an
integral part of the tradition of Islamic government that , despite their
reputation for despotic and arbitrary rule, even the Ottoman sultans could not
afford to disregard it. Failure to observe the dictates and conventions of rule
in the public interest was sufficient cause to render invalid the oath of
allegiance (biat0 sworn by high government dignitaries as each new Sultan
acceded to the thrown. Contemporary readers of Evilya’s account would have
needed no reminder of this fact of Ottoman political life, because the events
that had led up to the deposing of Ibrahim I in 1648 were still fresh in the
collective memory. (dankoff).

Life in the time of Evilya
and Melek

Evilya book shows the dichotomy of the
Ottoman Empire. While the Ottomans in the inner conquered cities prided
themselves upon polyglot of religious tolerance, the peripherals were continual
ghaziness of conquering, suppressing and showering power and force of the
mighty strongman Islam against the weak infidels. Ironically, this would be
Edward Said’s own theory folding in on itself. “Ottoman modernization supplanted
an established discourse of religious subordination by a notion of temporal
subordination in which an advanced imperial center reformed and disciplined
backward peripheries of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. This led to
the birth of Ottoman Orientalism.” (Makdisi).

However, Evilya book is tame compared to Ali
Mustpha’s critique on Egypt and Istanbul written relatively in the same periods.

Ten volumes of his Book of Travels provide
an unparalleled account of life in the Ottoman empire during the mid-seventeenth
century. These are sections on Melek Pasha.

The Seyahatnamecontains a
wealth of material on cultural history, folklore and geography from the
countries Evliya Çelebi visited.

EVLlYA ÇELEBİ was born on the 25th of
February 1611 in Istanbul. ... (Between the periods of 1650 to 1662, Evliya
Çelebi held the post of head-muezzin and accountant for Melek Ahmet Pasha.

Note: fabrication and exaggeration occur in
this piece written in contemporary history. There is partisan theme, meaning a
hero and a villain.

Between the periods of 1650 to 1662,
Evliya Çelebi held the post of head-muezzin and accountant for Melek Ahmet
Pasha. Together with the Pasha they reside at the province of Özi and Rumeli.
Many events connected with the Pasha and which are narrated as personal
experiences. Below is described how the Pasha, after having been governor in
many provinces becomes Grand Vizier. The steps he took and the decision he made
are related along with his dismissal in the end.
(Ataman).

Not
only did slaves remember where they came from, they also were in communication
with their relatives. This was not always the case.

Köprülü is the villain and Melek is the Hero
and Evilya is the protagonist.

oMelek is generous and giving person.

oKöprülü is stingy, and a control’s people.
He tries to clean everything up and kills many people. He revitalizes the
empire.

Damad: the
sons-in-laws

Melek’s two wives. (see - Sultan Ahmed I
( 1603-17) : After his reign the rise of the damad ( Son in laws)).

Köprülü

Kaya married at 13, but not consummated
till much later, marriage possibly of love, but rare in this time.

Fatma, marries her when she is
seventy-years old. Arranged marriage without his consult.

This was the classical model of
political marriages to keep loyalty.

Does this matter? Well one cannot
refuse the sultan. Ask Ipşir who waited seven months in the provinces then
decided to march on Istanbul.

Marriages in general during the 17th
century are quite different from the political marriages of the high
officials in the early period. In the early period, marriage was to
consolidate affiliations between ethnicities and lands. When the Ottomans
conquered a new area they would arrange political marriages, almost like
what was done in Europe during the 15th -16th century.
In the 17th century, the marriages tied the Pasha to the Sultan.
One couldn’t survive without the other. One of the changes were the
replacement of the kul system, a merit system, which that of consolidating
( see cins) family or noble appointments.

Themes 17-18th Centuries

Aims of change

Non aggressive

Centralized conflicts

Higher taxes

Confidence

Local ayans

State not in debt like Europe

Lower taxes.

Decline of centralized state or they
didn’t want to keep local stability.

ID: Melek: Was a Turk form Istanbul. His
father, Dervix Mehmed Zilli Agha, chief goldsmith at the Ottoman court, had (
according to family tradition) accompanied Süleyman the Magnificent on his late
campaigns. His mother was an Abkhazian slave girl, presented to Sultan Ahmed I
among with her cousin Melek Ahmed, who later became of the great statesmen of
the age and Evliya’s chief patron. Melek names translates into Angel and claims
that Süleyman named him after his introduction to the sultan and acceptance into
the palace schools. He was part of the kul system.

Evilya ID

His book of travels is nearly is nearly 6000
pages long. It is written in "spoken language".

Evliya Çelebi showed an undying interest in
the characteristics of the countries in which he journeyed and in the people he
met. His work covers the historic events of the 17th century Ottoman Empire with
vivid flashes into the life of the period, and is an invaluable source of
historic and geographic knowledge. (Ataman).

He became Murad IV’s sword bearer and
personal companion. On the day of the conquest of Baghdad he was offered the
grand vizierate position.

Melek levies 300 purses on the merchants and
workers in Istanbul which the rose up and with help from his enemies cause him
to lose his grand viser position. But this was considered a minor fraction and
he was not killed as many grand visers were in history.

Men begin their career as ‘ slaves of the
Port” ( kapikulu) – notably the janissaries, derived mainly from the Balkins,
and the military slaves form the Caucasus – had the likeliest chance to achieve
high office in the military and political spear. Such was the case of Melek
Ahmed ( Though he was not technically a military slave, as he was born in
Istanbul).

Romainia: Ochakiv (Russian: Очаков, Ochakov;
Crimean Tatar/Turkish: Özi) is a town of 16900 inhabitants in Mykolaiv (Nikolaev)
Oblast of southern Ukraine, located on a peninsula on the shores of the Black
Sea, at the entrance to the estuary of the Dnieper, and opposite to Kinburn. Özi
Province was an Ottoman province (vilayet) which included the territory of the
former Principality of Karvuna (Dobrogea) and from 1484 until 1812 also the
sanjaks of Ottoman Bessarabia or roughly modern-day Bugeac. The province capital
of Özi is now modern Ochakov. After 1812, Özi was known as Silistre vilayet.
Modern: Moldova or Moldavia is a region in Eastern Europe encompassing parts of
the current states of Romania, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. At the end of
the Crimean War, in 1856, by the Treaty of Paris, two districts of southern
Bessarabia were returned to Moldova.

The Ottoman Empire was divided into
provinces (vilayets, beylerbeyiliks, eyalets or pashaluks). As time progressed
the number of provinces would vary from thirty-six to a little over twenty,
until many of the provinces were lost during World War I. At the height of its
power, the Empire had 29 provinces. The Provinces of Rumili and Anadolu were
under the direct rule of the sultan in Istanbul. The remaining 27 provinces were
controlled by governors-general (beylerbeyis or vali).

The Provinces of Rumili (Rumelia) and
Anadolu (Anatolia) were under the direct rule of the sultan in Istanbul.
Otherwise, the provinces were ruled by governor-generals (beylerbeylis).

3.1.4.The Sultan tries to balance the disagreements the
best he can. He wants to see his state in peace and economic prosperity.

3.2.Political marriages damad

3.2.1.Damad ties the Sultan to his administration so he
can relax or play.

3.2.2.Melek to sultan Kaya, marriage at 13, not
consummated because of dream till later.

3.2.3.Melek appointed marriage to seventy-year old Fatma
Sultan.

3.2.4.Once a viser dies, the daughter of the sultan is
married off to another viser.

3.3.Marketplace

3.3.1.People have power to rise up and depose or demote
an official.

3.3.2.Solidarity, power by numbers, and legitimate
grievances.

3.3.3.Market place can be a place of chaos in Istanbul.

3.4.adelet

3.4.1.How are you supposed to run adalet? How are we
supposed to govern?

3.4.2.The Prophet said “ The Liar is not in my community”
a discussion on the finances and or the lack thereof of Van appointments in the
imperial presence ( at court) . Dispute over money. One should just accept their
appointment because it is the state and not the individual that matters.

3.4.3.Debate between Melek Ahmed Pasha and Ipşir Pasha in
the presence of Sultan Mehmed IV. Şemsi-paşa-zade Mehmed Emin Pasha, appointed
governor to Van, was greedy and the entire garrison (kuls) revolted. 40 day war
destroyed many buildings meaning destroyed many lives, bankrolled by the
treasury the material and financial supplies were used. This was not adelet on
Emin Pasha’s part but greed and his decisions hurt others.

3.4.4.Melek (Angel) he is human, and Evilya points this
out.

3.4.5.

3.5.patronage

3.5.1.Patronage is not permanent or for life.

3.6.Can Cins play a factor in viser or high
office leadership appointments? For example all Albanians?

4.Spirituality

4.1.Sufi

4.2.Derviş Sünneti, a Bektashi dervish.

4.2.1.Magically appears and disappears. Appears at deputy
viser’s palace, and penetrates the walls and many gatekeepers. He was eloquent
and quick witted. Love-intoxicated holy man.

4.2.2.Evilya says that Melek “ was himself a sufi adept
and heart-wounded dervish, and he always used to

4.2.3. Associate with the Upright of the Community”.
Şeyhs of the sufi brotherhood.

4.2.4.Not all Sufis shown in the same way. Melek knows
sufi language that Evilya doesn’t. Melek recites a verse of the dervish’s
sextain, showing he knew the identity of dervish. Evilya congratulates him,
because he is astounded at Melek wide education and understanding of culture.

4.2.5.Melek was Nakşbendi (tarik-i hocaganda). His
“saints of Spain pass there as Christians, but both are believers in
monotheism [trans. meaning muslim], and secretly the possessors of the rug
and sultans in the vanguards of Nakşbendi”.

4.2.6.Evilya was son of Derviş Mehmed Zilli.

4.2.7.This event and first meeting gave Melek peace of
mind and showed esoteric knowledge that is related to the occult sciences.
Meaning people are aware of sysmbols and hidden meaning, possessing the
Encompassing Onomancy [ cefr-i cami – that is, Miftāh al-jafr al-jāmi‘, a
book by Muhyī’d dīn Abū l-‘Abbās al Būnī ( d. 622/1225), standard work of
Islamic cabbalism].

4.3.Dreams

4.4.Ghazi frontier

4.5.Belgrade reciting and school for teaching the
reciting of the Koran. Was not built until Grand Viser Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed Pasha, erected between 1661 and 1667 with
his vakif.

4.5.1.Evilya claims there were eight
medreses in Belgrade, but no school for learning to recite the Koran ( See above
first instance). There were three teachers and fourteen students.

4.6.morality

4.6.1.Melek described as humble, and generous by Evilya.

4.6.2.In contrast to stingy Köprülü.

10 points of Evilya Çelebi’s books show
important aspects of the Ottoman Empire.

1.Stability of the state in face of insurrection from
within.

2.Political Marriage (damad) ties the Sultan and
his administration so he can relax or play.

3.Sufi

4.Dreams

5.Kadizade

6.adelet a. Köprülü seizing of
Melek’s possessions right after he dies and doesn’t care about his will.

7.patronage: Evilya To Melek, Kaya

8.the State

9.fractionalization

10.
Market place.

Murat Sultan is out in the field when
Melek is young.

Kaya Sultan, Murad IV daughter, her birth
celebrated at a large festival. She became Melek Pasha’s wife 1633. she is
married to him at age 13, but in a dream she is told not to sleep with him or
she will lose her life, because she will die in childbirth. After their first
child, she doesn’t die and thus destiny of dreams appears incorrect. Usually the
dreams in the Ottoman Empire are correct if interpreted correctly and they show
destiny with their fruition. She eventually gives birth again and dies thus
fulfilling the dream interpretation and destiny.

1. Stability

When was the Ottoman Empire considered
stable?

Revolt against Istanbul

Ipşir marches against Istanbul, sends
an Army home to grant himself as grand viser and displace Melek as grand
viser, and he is killed ( assassinated ) as Melek hears the news from a
guard named Ylidirim at his wife’s residence while preparing for his new
station as head deputy of the province Van, in Anatolia. This showed that
although at times the Sultan could be deposed as in other instances in
Ottoman history, the state goes on and is stable. The dynasty is secured and
no one person can bring it down.

Uprising of the tradesmen and the
Removal of Melek Ahmed Pasha.

First was his unjustified execution of
Hanefi Halife & Dasnik Mirza. August 9, 1651.

The Fortress of Azov at the extremity
of the Black Sea was besieged. 70,000 was called to help cure the revolts
and it is said that funny money handling went on. When confronted the Pasha
took a cane and started to beat the religious folk ( called them Jews) in
the area ( 79).

To get their judgment, the town held a
protest. So then this put pressure on the center to receive desired results.
He was removed to another position. ( 50,000 at protest) ( 79)

The people went to get fetwas ( Aziz
Efendi) that stated Sultan Melek Pasha was an infidel and he doesn’t
deserve the position of Viser.

Ipşir came from Aleppo after a full
seven months after he was called to the Port for a marriage offered by the
Sultan.

2. Marrige

Political Marriages (damad, Imperial
Son-in-laws to the Sultan).

These are marriages that tie the Sultan
to his administrators. Pashas and their households become more independent,
but damad plays an important role in the function of the Sultan’s ultimate
authority. However, Sultans are deposed and on rare occasions killed the
Sultanate remains unconquerable until the end of the Ottoman Empire. Pahsas
remain in administration all the way to the end as well.

Sultan Ahmed I
( 1603-17) : After his reign the rise of the damad ( Son in laws). Usage of
damad helps displace the misogynistic terminology associated with female
political marriages.

Era of multi-marriages for one women,
and loyalty is not an issue but disloyalty is tool for advancement.
Subversion of accepted norms.

He stops fratricide that was a
part of the last one hundred years of Ottoman ruling policies. From
provinces to the capital the competition for ruler relocated.

April 1662 . Marriage. Fazil Ahmed
Pasha to Fatma Sultan.

Melek Marriage to 13 year old Kaya
Sultan.

3. Sufi

1. Not all Sufis shown in the same way.

2. Melek knows sufi language that Evilya
doesn’t.

3. Sufis were very important in the founding
of the Ottomans. With the Pir Ghazis and noble elite reading, studying and
reciting Rüni ( Jalal al-Din) 14th century famous figure, Persian was
the main high language around at that time, and notables if considered cultured
would recited back and forth to each other verses of Rümi. His enormous work
including poetry is considered the Persian Qu’ran. He was a Mevlevi, and popular
culture knows his specific order as the famous Whirling Dervishes.

4. Evilya and his father were dervishes.

4. Dreams

Dreams were important to the Ottomans.
The Osman dream helped people identify the Ottoman State with the dream and
the destiny that dreams represented. The house of Osman dream reveals a
justification for legitimacy.

Cosmology of the Ottomans and Islam

The pen and the tablet in Islamic cosmology
are considered the concept of predestination and marks the reality in which the
Ottomans lived. Ottomans believed this in a physical sense, and dreams played a
large part in the overall formulation of the state beginning with the many, but
mainly, three dreams of Osman, the mythical, or physical ( see other pages)
which all show a destiny, a type of manifest destiny. In Evilya’s sections there
are 16 dreams. Most are shown in a predestined fashion and have prophetic
principles in which are played out until fulfillment.

Bread dream is
about confidence. Melek interprets the dream himself.

The late Sultan Murad appears in a dream and
has a loaf of bread of a Kurdistan baker with part of it
bloodied. The Sultan says, Give
some to Kaya, some to Khan of Bitlis, and eat some yourself. But the Sultan
didn’t offer it to Ipşir.

Predicted the awarding of the
governorship of Van.

Ipşir didn’t live a just life according
to Evilya, so he cannot take the bread in the dream. Ipşir has a different
fate and rememberance then the ones that are offered the bread.

Melek recalls his past to Evilya how he
became the sword bearer of Sutlan Murad and won his confidence by putting out a
fire and saving him when it was the duty of a former sword bearer who was not
paying attention.

The bread of Kurdistan baker meant that
Ipşir could not win wars in Van and that Melek’s dream about being offered to
eat the bread meant he would be victorious in Van, compared to Ipşir’s failure
on the battle field. This dream is when Ipşir was carrying out affairs from the
state with Melek Ahmed Pasha in council and at night he has a dream about the
late Sultan Murad and bread of a Kurdistan baker.

“Eat the bread in Van and have victory.”

Ipşir convinces the Sutlan to send Melek to
Van, where he failed. Melek prepares for his journey by packing and after five
days, Ipşir sends a complaint ( noble prescript) to the Sultan asking for the
ordering for Melek death because he was stalling. He is denied, and this also
helped seal his fate. The Sutlan instead gave him the position of
commander-in-chief. Melek returns to getting ready and it appears that Ipşir is
sending çavaşes to order him to leave immediately. This cases Melek to fly into
a rage and beat them off with a stick. He wants to spend intimate time with his
wife before he leaves. The dream also tells him that his wife will die in
childbirth. She had the same dream once. AS it turned out Kaya Sultan was seven
months pregnant, and thought the çavaşes were going to kill her husband and she
hurried to tell him and when she arrived she had a miscarriage. They morn the
baby premature death.

“ Let her wash the bloody bread and eat
it” referred to the little prince. You wash the blood and bury him.

Kaya Sultan supports Melek against his
enemies. She supports him financially and warns him of plots against his
life.

“ He still has enemies, and no friends”
Melek tells Evilya about Ipşir who dallied in Aleppo when he should be at
court addressing the sultan’s marriage proposal, but now is conspiring
against Melek and in fact took his grandvizership from him. However, the
Sultan knows that Ipşir didn’t do what he wanted and later Ipşir is
assassinated. Most of the time, it is with a bow-string.

Joseph of the bible and bread.

The blood means everyone that eats it
will ‘ eventually ‘ die, but served honorably to the side of Melek. Kaya
will die and Khan Bitlis will have bad luck against the Ottoman army.
Interpretation is the prophesy is that the Sultan will give him a station as
deputy in the province of Van.

Ipşir takes two of Melek officials and
places them in prison. Evilya is left behind for a little while to obtain
information of Ipşir. Ipşir doesn’t see any harm in Evilya, although he could
hav imprisoned him too.

Kudde Kethüda and the Morali Deftardar
and Mevkufati Mehmed Efendi

Kudde was Melek’s steward for twenty
years.

They are held for ransom.

placed naked in a freezing pool in
winter, not fed for many days and whipped every day. 1000 lashes.

They are lied too, and even though all
come up with most of the money they are taken and killed.

Evilya who is trying to be the
arbitrator, then just the monitor and then just a witnesses the whole
scene.

every evening he secretly reports to
Kaya.

He asks the Sultan about why he wouldn’t carry out an execution of Melek.

The Sultan replies that Melek is usful to the state and has been a grand
viser and three time deputy viser, indicating he was a seasoned professional
and hard to replace.

Kaya sultan tells Evilya that Ipşir may ascertain a secret noble rescripts (
a death penalty) and to go tell Melek to beware of such a plot. She gives
him 500 letters and travel money.

Evilya at night after meeting up with the pasha, visits some saints tombs
and performs two prostrations of saints buried in Üsküdar and Istanbul. The
Pasha was going to send him back to Istanbul and he was a little afraid and
prayed for protection for his journeys in general.

Battle in Diyarbekir against the Yezidis
Kurds in Saçli Daği.

Melek called for the standard order to give
up peasfully, but many kurds fearful hid from him. After they were captured,
they were sent to the Sultan and another dream plays a large role in saving of
the prisoners.

In general, the Yezidi kill their families
so their wifes and children are not made slaves, and other commit suicide, so to
escape punishment before death.

5. Kadizade

1. see above (
considered traditionalists, strict adherence to ethnic domination -- somewhat as
the same arguments that whites controlled the U.S.A. They battled bottom forces,
a bottom up phenomena, also disliked social imbalances. They struggled with
modernity, considering such things as opium and coffee houses are not covered
legalistically in the hadiths. So what to do?

6. Adalet

See Adalet and Evilya above.

How are you supposed to run adalet? How
are we supposed to govern?

Evilya’s character of Fatima Sultan and
social elite points out a negative example of some disastrous Sultanic
policies toward the poor. ( Ch. 10 beginning).

Historian Mehmed Solak-zade : Hem-demi
( one who is in the company of the sultan constantly. He says that Sultan
Ibrahīm I lived in luxury and was kicked off the thrown from political
discourse because people were suffering while he lived in opulence.

Contemporary writing speaks about
episodes: Confiscation ( Müsadere) of deceased princess worldly goods, and
some of these goods were her rightful inheritance from her recently deceased
husband, This showed greed and not justice.

Fatima and Köprülü fight for Melek‘s
possessions.

Dankoff , Robert. The Intimate Life
of an Ottoman Statesmen. State University of New York. 1991

Political Marriages

Sultan Ahmed I
( 1603-17) : After his reign the rise of the damad ( Son in laws).
Usage of damad helps displace the misogynistic terminology associated with
female political marriages.

Era of multi-marriges for one women, and
loyalty is not an issue but disloyalty is tool for advancement. Subversion of
accepted norms.

He stops fratricide that was a part
of the last one hundred years of Ottoman ruling policies. From provinces to the
capital the competition for ruler relocated.

7.Patronage: (view it like twentieth century
clientism/special interest groups and their leaders, and individual preferences
to social organization, technological progress and innovation. This system, the
Ottoman patronage system connects the empire into a semi-smoothly running
civilization.)

Patronage is not permanent or for life.

Köprülü first patron was Hüsrev Pasha.

Living on the Margins of Charity by
Eyal Ginio talks about coping with poverty there. The Ottoman sultans didn’t
regard Salonika as a primary target for their generosity and philanthropy.
There were no sultanic endowments. Evilya Çelebi visited.

The sultans major responsibility was
relief to the poor!

In Solonika the Sufis and residents
made it their responsibility to attend to the poor and set up their own
endowments.

Solonika was a place for pensioned
visers, political exiles and ousted dignitaries.

Evilya’s patron was Melek, and his
book showed that patrons do not last a lifetime.

Obligation of a subordinate
in the Ottoman system was to praise and otherwise promote the welfare of his/her
superior, to whom they owed loyalty.

8. The State

Balkins to the Causus

Porous boundaries.

Powerful Pasha Households in the
provinces. The mere sight of the Pashas with their vast retune showed the
populous Ottoman legitimacy.

Istanbul is somewhat in chaos.

The revolt and march by Ipşir shows the
state is strong and one man cannot overthrow it. The dynasty is secured and
one man cannot replace the Sutlanate, but can replace the sultan.

People had a role in government.

Children raised in Harems.

Girls married off to get their own
powerbase.

Sultan Murat the conqueror of Baghdad
shows the Ottoman still a very powerful military state.

Van is a frontier post. Theme manage,
Ghazi, less stability.

9. Fractionalization

Rise of the Pasha households, fear of
each other’s powers.

decentralization.

contention with correct path.

favoritism.

End of meritocracy

destabilization.

10. Market place

1. Cannot shut down the market place. This would be economic dire
circumstances.

2. Istanbul, The Market Place can bring down a grand viser.

Battle by Isnik: ( pages 70s)

The Command to execute by goading the Sultan
and he concents: Hanefi Halife & Dasnik Mirza.

Ghazi’s still used on the battlefield.

Chief doorkeepers is translated to mean
people that carry orders from the once place, like the battlefield to the Port,
or another place.

Very graphic descriptions of how parts of
body are wasted in battle.

Peasants dig pits and bury the dead en
masse.

814 heads were taken t Istanbul mounted on
sticks and paraded around passed the Divan and in the presence of “ the
felicitous Sultan Mehmed Khan Gaazi ( 76). Finally removed they were trampled in
the dust like polo balls beneath the hoves of the passerby” ( 77)the Fire

People stealing the heads and the same night
in the quarter of Fener kapi in Istanbul fire caught. The infidel quarters known
as Bektas Agha’s barracks collapsed. Gun power dump caught fire as more fires
were set.

Uprising of the tradesmen and the Removal of
Melek Ahmed Pasha.

First was his unjustified execution of
Hanefi Halife & Dasnik Mirza. August 9, 1651.

The Fortress of Azov at the extremity of the
Black Sea was besieged. 70,000 was called to help cure the revolts and it is
said that funny money handling went on. When confronted the Pasha took a cane
and started to beat the religious folk ( called them Jews) in the area ( 79).To
get their judgment, the town held a protest. So then this put pressure on the
center to receive desired results. He was removed to another position. ( 50,000
at protest) ( 79). The went to get fetwas ( Aziz Efendi) that stated Sultan
Melek Pasha was an infidel and he doesn’t deserve the position of Viser.

Protests -- Bottom Up Forces

August 12, 1651. Istanbul protest of unfair
treatment by the rich administrators to the guilds people and common folk. Too
stop the suffering the protestors demanded 70,000 piasters’ worth of gold. They
received it. But to the people the money was supposed to go be distributed
didn’t make it.

Again the people clamored at the residences
of the Pasha demanding justice and again he hit them with his staff.

Outside the Pasha’s residence the rebels
demanded the revenge for 70 men killed by the Pasha’s war against the rebels who
many were poor people ( workers).(89)

August 23, 1615 another outbreak in Istanbul
and the administrations gates were shut again. Many people died. Buried money
dug up and returned to treasury.

On the way to Özü Melek house stop at Resçuk.

Then Sultan Ahmed I wife Kösem Valide,
mother of Murad IV was strangled by the chief black eunuch Div Süleyman Agha.
She was martyred, according to Çelebi. Three days and nights of morning.
Several hundred people were put to death, secretly and publicly, and Istanbul
was in a tumult.

Most of the brew haha was about money. The
fact at the empire was not conqusting which was much of their early monetary
system, the ways into getiing money was now tighter and a new thing. Much money
was afloat in the Ottoman Empire but when the population grew after the capture
of Arab lands and the capitulations to the Europe in trade one needs to look at
where the money to pay the tradesman and troops is coming from.

December 1652 Melek is removed from Özü and appointed
governor of Rumeli.

At Sofia, one needs to remember this
movement is a part of the Ottoman system so roots and loyalty do not blind the
task of ruling justly at hand.

At Sofia

There is an incident of divine retribution
as a moral message that Allah is just when we begin to read about what it is in
Sofia. This narrative is a stark contrast to the tumultuous Istanbul in the
prior chapters. However this episode tests Melek’s resolve. As part of the
solution, Melek banned all prostitutes of Sofia from the town. The religious
functionaries were happy, but the more secular were unhappy. But ironically
Ginayi Efendi, who Melek sought out because he was the defterdar of this town,
sent him a “splendid Circassian slave girl.” (99).

Dream interpretations.

A Marvel: the Genuine Dream of this
Humble One, Evliya the Unhypocritical.

Melek interprets a dream, and Joseph of the Bible is mentioned.

“Now my administrators are towing me to the path of Truth.”

The ship is described by a Franck as sick, and top heavy. ( I’m too
concerned with worldly pomp, that I have too many servants and a swelled
head).

“There is no balance in the hold” ( refers to my being hungry because of my
religious men).

The dream also is about many men from his house dying or abandoning him.
This alludes to the other pomp phrase and swelled head of greed and neglect
of gratitude upon the people that make him the famous and important person
his is in the Ottoman Administration.

After he ate ( Supposedly a 70 day fast due to sickness) he distributes
large amounts of money to many people associated with his house and the
town. He has a return to relgion and the notion that charity or well being
of others in the Islamic doctrine is very important and being greedy and
haughty doesn’t win support.

Kaya Sultan sent a Frankish physician which gives legitimacy to this story
and the physician began to treat the Pahsa.

Gīnayi Efendi passed away- who was the apple of his eye and friend for 40
years.

Ottoman Timeline: 1656-58 reassertion
of control over Transylvania ( Rakoczy).

1660s Advances
upon Hapsburg & Polish territory.

17th Century the Rise of the Pasha Households

Located on the upper Tigris
basin, at the junction of historical trade routes connecting Anatolia to Iran
and Mesopotamia, Diyarbakır, surrounded by walls, has been an important
settlement for many centuries.

ID: Evliya
Çelebi (also known as Derviş Mehmed Zilli) was one of the most famous Ottoman
travelers, who traveled throughout the territories of the Ottoman Empire and the
neighboring lands over a period of forty years. He also was a calligrapher,
dream interpreter, Iman and boon companion to Pasha Melek, decorator, musician
and a poet. He accompanied many pasha’s on campaign, and was many persons’
benedictory, Qu’ran orator and dreamer interpreter the text makes a large
donation to the importance of dreams and how correctly they were interpreted.

Importance to
grand viser and deputy viser Melek: Served as Melek Iman, boon companion,
and offered servant appointments like marshal of the guards, but didn’t like
these responsibilities so he turned them down. Evliya treats Melek as almost a
Saint.

Sig: Evliya
Çelebi showed an undying interest in the characteristics of the countries in
which he journeyed and in the people he met.1. He gives us a glimpse into the
Ottoman Empire in the 17th century, albeit at times most obviously
exaggerated. His writings shows factionalism in the divan itself.

Evliya's "Book of Travels" has three
versions -- 10 volumes.

‘Evliya Çelebi traveled from early childhood
until the time when there was nothing to see and no one to meet; he learned and
recorded everything. He derived his real source of knowledge and culture not
from education but from life. The desire in him to learn burned until his last
days. Likewise during his long stay in Egypt during his old age, he explored the
whole country while also attending lectures by the scholars of the period’.1.

Born on February 25, 1611 in Istanbul as the
son of a jeweler designer for the Ottoman court, he received an excellent
education. After initially traveling in Istanbul and taking notes on buildings,
markets, customs and culture, he started his first journey outside the city in
1640 (Bursa) . His collection of notes of all of his travels formed a ten volume
work called Seyahatname (Book of Travels). Although many of the
descriptions in this book were written in a quite exaggerated manner, his notes
are widely accepted as a useful guide to the cultural aspects and life style of
Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.

The Seyahatname contains the first
transcriptions of many Caucasian languages, and the only extant specimens of
written Ubykh outside the linguistic literature.

Father: MelekFather was serving
the treasure of Selim I’s grand vizer Kara Piri Pasha and was part of conquest
of the Arab lands in 1515-7. Evliya traces back a linage to Ebu Bekr as-Sīddik.
His own birth was among the Sadşa tribe, situated in the wilderness of the
Elburz mountain skirt ( i.e. Caucasus). He was a military slave ( gulam –i
feta).

Melek fathers, addressed from words of Melek
himself told by Evliya is he was Özdemir Beg’s nephew of his father’s side. He
served as chief of Özdemir’s guards in Egypt. Tavaşi Süleyman Pasha, who was
Süleyman Khan’s vizer invaded the Indian ocean; went to conquer Yemin, a
strategic port location then to open up trade routs to India to dominate the
ocean. Fought Francks and Portuguese and even raided them taking jewels and
money. He took in India the fortresses of Diu, Benderbad, Dablabad, and routed
several Frank armies. He then gave the keys to the forts to emperor of India who
in return gave him money. (271).

Melek married Kaya at 13. A
prophecy told her not to sleep with him. Many years later her mother locked both
of them in a room after telling Melek to get her pregnant. The prophecy didn’t
come true right away, but later on it did. Many girls were married in the
Ottoman empire at this age.

Father: Evliya
Çelebi

His father, Mehmet Ağa (Derviş Muhammed Zilli), had taken part
in the conquest of Cyprus during the reign of Sultan Selim II, had presented the
keys of Famagusta to the Sultan and had risen to the post of chief jeweller in
the palace. He was over seventy five and in Evliya Celebi's words "a grand old,
man". 1.

According to Çelebi,
Melek and he were cousins from his mothers’ side, were presented to the court on
the same day to Ahmed I. And, Melek, early in the reign of Murad IV, brought
Evliya to the sultan’s attention.

Understanding movement of governors was a policy adopted to
extinguish loyalty to an area.

1645 Governor (sançakbegi) of
Diyarbekir for the second time. A year later again for the third time.

1650

Governor of Baghdad appointed three times, but
the first day of the third appointment he became grand vizer ( then he is
demoted, many were).

1654 Melek sent to Van.

1656 March: grudge of Pasha Ipşir
against Pasha Melek

Melek at Beg-bazari

Torture

Torture of Melek’s chancery, defterdar and steward then their
executions is about as bad as it can get, as described by Çelebi. Neck chains,
placed in winter in a pool of water, no food for days, and taken out
periodically for 1000 lashings and at least once every day and told to give
Ipşir ( vizer) all their lands, all their deeds and all their money (these were
rich people). If we can believe Çelebi, then the astronomical amount of wealth
handed over was never going to save their lives. One must remember that Mehmed
IV was only twelve-years-old at that time. So what could he do? This showed
factionalism in the Ottoman leadership system as well as the growing independent
leadership of the Pasha households.

Ghazi verses Infidel

Yezidis in the Saçli Daği. Kurdish/Sunni Differences

Pasha Ipşir wants Pasha Melek dead and tried to issue three
imperial rescripts [ decrees for execution by majority vote in all departments]
but was voted down. Melek is sent to Van (the lest rich state in the province [
according to Çelebi ]meaning that Melek’s salary is tied to its success) where
is then recruits and army at first for protection from possibly facing Ipşir
then, to get the army promises them look so they go after one of the richest
cities which happened to be Kurdish.

Deputy ( then) vizer Melek’s blitzkrieg of the Kurdish Yezidis
(Çelebi highlights that because they didn’t worship Sunni strictly they were
doomed as infidels from the beginning) is an awful inhuman account, if we can
believe Çelebi’s descriptions of the burning most of the regions peoples alive
in caves, where they sought refuge from the 89,000 man army of the Ottomans. The
Ottomans had taken all the land, some coinage, all the fortresses and homes,
and burnt much of it, then turned to the caves and trapped the multitudes of
people in them and burnt, suffocated them. They managed to take slaves from old
and young, preferring the moonfaced boys ( You add your significance here) and
virgin girls.

Bektashi Dervish appears to Melek twice.

Melek Ahmed Pasha, Van army

Saricans: foot soldiers

Segbans: cavalry

Regiments: 100 soldiers

70 regiments at Mt. Sincar

In addition to Pasha’s household
army. 19,000

Raided 300 villiges

Killed 10,000

13,000 captives

9,000 animals

Gold, sliver in all forms

Lala: imperial tutor; tutor

Mihrab ( Prayer-niche)

Expressions: finger to mouth, as
bewilderment, amazement. Used with cherubim, Muslims, and people in general.

Serbian word meaning just (çeşteti)
(Turkish ‘ādil)(244)

The PERIOD of KÖPRÜLÜ

Köprülü

The alteration of
the grand viziers was hindering the empire’s recovering. Meanwhile, everybody
wanted to see Köprülü Mehmet Pasha as the grand vizier. He was offered to be the
grand vizier but for the first time in the Ottoman history Mehmet Pasha laid
down some conditions. First of his conditions was, the palace would be apart
from the administration, secondly, if somebody would complained about him, his
defence would be asked. Sultan Mehmet IV had accepted these conditions and
Köprülü Mehmet Pasha came to be the grand vizier. He was a vigorous old man and
he restored the tranquillity.

He restored the
financial regulations, he recaptured the island of Limni, Bozcaada and Imros
from the Venetians in 1657. He defeated the Russian Army in Konotop (1659) and
he repressed the revolt of Erdel Prince Rakochi.

Anatolian Turkish
States had liberated during the chaotic condition of the empire. Köprülü Pasha
had attacked them, he restored unity violently as Murat IV previously did. He
attended grand vizier for five years and he killed approximately 35.000.000
people.

He died in
October, 31, 1661. His son, the greatest of all Turkish grand viziers Köprülü
Ahmed Pasha held the viziership.

The
Ottoman-Austrian War was continuing. Köprülü Ahmed Pasha raided to Austria he
captured the castles of Uyvar (September 24, 1663) and Novigrad (November 4,
1663), and Austria wanted an agreement.

With the Vasvar
Agreement(August 10, 1664), the Ottomans took the places they were invaded and
Austria accepted to pay war compensation.2.

Çelebi said (205),
Melek treated Köprülü
terribly when he was up and coming. Since then, Köprülü suffered poverty,
distress and vicissitudes. He also becomes a good military leader in Baghdad and
Iran.

Truful he
is wrathful and contentious > but he acts according to the principles of ‘ love
for the sake of God’, hate for the sake of God.’ If he can get rid of the Segban
and Sarica vermin in the Anatolian provinces, and if he can restore the currency
and remove the arrears, and if he can undertake overland campaigns- then I am
certain that he will bring order to the Ottoman state. For you know breaches
have occurred here and there in this Ottoman state.

Aristotle
is references (208) “I seem to acquire the wisdom of Aristotle.”

“The
Pasha knew that fish stinks from the head” ( 225)
Evliya commenting on Köprülü’s
understanding of one situation.

The death of Kaya
Ismehan Sultan, Daughter of Gazi Murad Khan dies in childbirth and miscarriage.
Forty years of service and all is taken by the state from Melek’s wife because
of laws. Once must remember, barring special endowments not always easy to get
or administer (trustees for children) for retainers of one’s wealth after one
dies, the state takes one’s belonging because the sultan owns everything. This
is a type of communism. Köprülü
takes all of Melek’s wife’s belongings, according to law and places them in a
lockdown portion of a city, where the daughter will get them later on, but not
for the Pasha to use which may be the case. When, inventory was taken, much was
deemed not Kaya’s personal belongings but mostly military paraphernalia, so
after Köprülü assigns Melek Bosnia and tells him to raid Venetian trade towns,
he restores him his belongings.

The
prophesy of Melek and Kaya marriage and its significance is a story of an
appearance of non-fate and fate.

Bosnia More Ghazi
raids against Infidels

Sable
robe of Honor,
is like a pack after cutting a deal, in this case the appointment, then the
financial agreement set in verbal commands, and witnesses, the robe is bestowed.
Kinda like a paper contract with a actual practicality.

March 15, 1659 Melek heads from Istanbul to Bosnia. Evliya
offered post by Köprülü and turns it down. He is sent to Köprülü to give some
correspondence where Köprülü gets mad but then leaves and some of his officers
call him a pimp, and the one sword his slave and the treasurer throws a javelin
into his thigh and it came out the back side. They wanted to kill him. Köprülü
breaks up a staged fight ( they chained the gates) and Evliya strikes the treasurer with a sword and so both are
wounded. A kadi is summened and witness forge out what happen, and comes to be
known that slander in Van occurred, and it was a grudge. Both are Ok and Evliya
and the tresuer were locked in the janissaries quarters for twenty days. After
both mens wounds heal Köprülü
tells Evilya that Melek is no good and that it is better for him to stay and be
of service ( reciting passages) to Köprülü’s house.

Back in Bosnia thousands of Infidels heads on sticks are
paraded as Melek mughazis/maghazi.

The recruited Ghazis disputed with Melek that equal
distribution is there custom, which is correct. They must divide equally amount
themselves. This was in part the Muhammad custom after his Hegira. This act
felicitates great loyalty and unity. However, the Padshah didn’t proceed and
auctioned off the loot and scalped the heads and salted the scalps of 200
prisoners. (249).

Antidote of a Muslim and a infidel on a rescue/war pact
cemented by liking each other blood. One is captured the other attempts a
rescue. Each die and take the others fate in the afterlife.

1660 Raiding in Dalmatia.

1661 Campaigning in Transylvania receives official orders in
Fogarasch announcing the death of Köprülüand the succession of his son Fazil Ahmed Pasha to
the grand vizerate: and informing Melek of his marriage to Fatma Sultan. Melek
Pasha expresses his outage at the news by saying: “They have given me an old
crone, and told me to ‘ feed the state elephant.’” Melek and Evilya return to
Istanbul.

April 1662 . Marriage. Fazil Ahmed Pasha to Fatma Sultan.

The Bektashi returns and gives Melek Tarikat-I Muhammediya.
A treaties by Birgili Mehmed, complete in 980/1572.

Intresting in the final sections where Melek dies a
significant phrase of “ quaffed various beverages from strange hands” ( even at
the Divan) indicating it is not trustful to partake of something that you have
no idea where or who it came from.

The Kuls uprise, but a high Divan day they were supposed to go
and get paid. He goes, and he spends some of his own money to free up 105 slave
boys of his aand distributes money to many his slaves all over the lands. This
would be an endowment that the state cannot touch and something he made sure was
binding in the courts a long time ago. He is spitting up blood now. For seven
hours he makes is last will and testament.

As always, after he dies, Fatma and others go for his loot
right after he dies, and this is a theme played out in other writings, not every
time, but is seen as a reoccurrence. The laws are so vague that this happens,
and Fatma takes his loot.

The seventeenth-century Seyahatname, or Book of
Travels, of the famous Ottoman chronicler Evliya Çelebi expresses this
fusion of privilege, urbanity, class, patronage, and Sunni Islam that defined
being Ottoman. If Istanbul was the "abode of felicity," the frontiers of the
empire were its antithesis: regions where heresy flourished, locales of strange
and often comical stories, and arenas where Ottomans "proved" their Islamic
identity and yet reconciled themselves to the fact of a multi-religious and
ethnic empire. (Makdisi).

The Seyahatname reveals just how deep the religious and
ethnic consciousness of Ottomans ran in the late seventeenth century. For
example, Çelebi's description of his patron Melek Ahmed Pasha's punishment of
the "dog worshippers, worse than infidels, a band of rebels and brigands and
perverts, resembling ghouls of the desert, hairy heretic Yezidi Kurds" near
Diyarbekir in Anatolia reflects one of the central tenets of the Ottoman
imperial system: not simply the existence of a profound difference between
Ottoman rulers and many of the subjects they ruled but the unbridgeable nature
of this difference. Melek Ahmed Pasha sent seventy regiments of soldiers in
addition to his retinue of "Abkhazian and Circassian and Georgian braves—who
shamed one another in battle, and never held back their reins, and who knew what
Muhammedan honor meant." The result was, according to Çelebi, a very bloody
battle in which the Yezidis were literally smoked out of their caves. They
preferred collective suicide to surrender. "When the army of Islam saw this
spectacle," Çelebi relates, "they too expended the utmost of their powers and
smote with their swords. Blood of the Yezidis flowed down the mountainside. God
willing, vengeance was exacted at the hand of Melek Ahmed Pasha for the blood of
the martyrs of Kerbala. In short, such a mighty battle raged for ten days and
nights that even Küçük Ahmed Pasha's battle on Jabal Druze with Man-oglu
was not so fierce. (Makdisi f18).

Ottoman Understandings of the
World in the Seventeenth Century

By Goffried Hagen. Afterward.

Predestination

Cosmology Evilya befriended Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi (d. 1628).

1.predestination and seven
flat earths

2.Ptolemy ( Algamast) and
spherical mathematical-geographical lore

Thesis:
the theological tradition was based upon a concept of causality through divine
ordination, while the philosophical tradition posited innumerable individual
phenomena and laws and nature which could be expressed in mathematical terms.
They may be mutually exclusive in their pure forms.

Hagen says, “ the essential purpose of the cosmography – to
impress the reader with the miraculous, exotic, or simply entertaining – results
in an implicit tripartite division of the world, which cuts across the division
of climes ( flat spaces like planes in space? Used as measurements of the earth.
Like longitude and latitude) or historical regions. [This is classical
Orientalism, as Said states, in the concept of the ‘other.’]The
center is surrounded by the foreign countries, the ‘ others,’ and at the fringes
of the world there are the entirely marvelous, or monstrous creatures. This was
playing to the unknown fringes of the world. It was there the pious speculation
localized elements from the legends which had no place in the known universe,
but were clearly believed to exist or have existed as historical realities.

The savage people, Gog and Magog, had been destroyed by Alexander
the Great, and locked behind an iron wall between two mountains, form where they
would break freeze on Judgment day. This wall is usually believed to be in the
north east Asia and such is found on the maps in cosmographies. [Cannot write
the whole thing but parts of Africa and Europe are also in the “ other”
regions].

Evilya is one of the few Ottomans that ventured into the realm of
the “other” ( Asian Steppes, Austria) and even reached the fringes of the world
( Sudan, Ethiopia).

Very few wrote about the Other side in Ottoman history up in this
period.

Travelor ‘Ali Ekber traveled to China, and even though his
reports were now considered accurate politics discredited during his days.

In 1554, an Ottoman naval contingent shipwrecked in India. They
met local princes and brought back knowledges.

Some spies into Europe, but kept from the public.

Significance, much culture and worldly experience of the ‘other’
remained unexplored during the sixteenth century.

Geographic
knowledge was not put to scientific knowledge into the 18th century.

However, Evilya was a scientific gather of facts of his travels.
He was very systematic in recording what he saw and had a checklist. Evilya like
the strange and the exotic, or the ‘ other.’ ( this is Hagen’s thesis). I do not
believe this, this was Orientalism, written by an Oriental.

First God created the Well-preserved Tablet which is out of
white pearl. On both sides there is a red ruby.

Then God created the Pen and the Tablet.

From the pen radiates light.

Predestination. Those destined to be disobedient became
disobedient. Etc..

The Pen and tablet stand for predestination, yet they were also
accepted realities.

The Concept of seven layered earths, the vault of the sky resting
on earht’s outer boarder, and a cosmos resting on supernatural beings are
widespread within and without Islam.

Cihannüma

Katib Çelebi or Hacci Halife ( 1609-1657). He was two
years older then Evilya.

Like geography and like using Crete which the Ottomans had
started to in 1645 to take over. He used Europe and when couldn’t find Europe
sources he quite. However, when he found them, it was an important step to
scientifically studying geography. Both “ours” and “others.”

In Sum, cosmology and geography
are required for the order of human civilization and society. If someone knows
its rules and maps, and can recall them, he will have learned more than someone
else with a thousand pains and hardships in several thousand years of travel. -Katib Çelebi.

He dies before he finishes this work, but it changed the Ottoman
rulers to try to figure out teaching the Qu’ran only will not get them a state
of the art army in which they knew they ‘now ‘ were lacking.

“ the Idea was novel for the Ottomans intellectual, and in fact
it is translated from Mercator.” -Hagen.

In another work Katib Çelebi cites the military success to
their scientific and geographical superiority ( 1656 Dardanelles threatened).

H e dies untimely in 1557. In 1668 the Dutch ambassador presented
an eleven-volume edition of William Janzoon Blaeuw’s monumental Atlas Maior
to Sultan Mehmed IV. Venetian colleagues immediately feared it would be used
against them, but the Sultan didn’t have it commissioned for a translation until
eight years later ( 1675). Translation completed in 1685.

Köprülü Fazil Ahmed Pasha seems to have played a role in this
direction.

This geograpghical knowledge played a role in the 1683 Vienna
campaign.

In the period of Katib Çelebi and Evilya the Ottoman Empire was no longer the
central position of the Universe

Müneccimbaşi (d. 1702), who owes
his nickname to his office as court astrologer and companion of Mehmed IV
astrologer wrote the history of Islam where Adam to the Ottomans comprised the
Universe.

“The noble family has obtained
the Sultanate [ not through] wrongdoing to anybody else [ but] seized all its
territory from unbelievers, rebels, and evildoers”. – Müneccimbaşi.

Evilya two major elements of the
Ottoman Self image as derived this history of pre-modern Ottoman historians.
Ultimate justice which leads to a stable rule, and zeal in the holy war against
the infidel; symbolically this self image is expressed in the famous dream in
which the future empire was announced to Osman when he was still the chief of a
small nomadic tribe in northwestern Anatolia.

Osman’s dream of the tree is
symbolic of an agriculture society.

“Ottoman superiority, also was
Evilya’s view and here in this statement is from Mehmed IV’s secretary of the
imperial council, “ The Ottoman Sultans, accustom to Holy War, were occupied
with ghaza and religious warfare generation after generation”.

Devine support cam in dreams, or
how they interpreted them.

Then Hagen goes on to cite
examples of references to spirts on the battle field and such helpers in the
spirit realm battle the ‘others’ and suppress and conqured and kill them.

Then there were realities. The
Celali uprising that toppled the Sultan Osman II ( 1622) and regicide
occurred, then onto Venice, Crete and finally ending with the disaster of
Vienna. (1683).

Ottoman political though was
built around inequality.

Ottoman four social estates in
ideology or theory, but not practice.

IN PRACTICE THIS IS NOT A MODLE – TRUE ESTATES ARE MUSLIM #1 and
ALL ELSE #2 IN SOCIETY

Sword Military

Scholars/religious

Agriculture

Craft trades

Typically as they lost wars and
lands for the first times in the 17th century the Ottomans saw this
as the downward spiral.

Evilya and Müneccimbaşi. Never
realized that the Ottomans were like everyone else in the world, that they makes
mistakes and are human and that their countries are not divine and will live on
and on, but will fall do to their problems.

Kadizade’s attacked Sufis and
their worship of saint tombs and other unorthodox practices. Murad IV cracked
down on Coffee Houses and Smoking.

However, know one brings up
education en masse, as in public schools and taking away religious dogma and
letting secular institutions bring science into the public lives.

The enlightenment was a slow
process of secularization and scientific exploration apart from religious duties
an dogma in which the Ottomans did not follow. It is hardly discuss out of fear
of exposure to census from Other Ottoman scholars that would chastise them for
thinking the Ottomans were somehow inferior in this schooling department and
therefore label the messenger as a heretic, freak. Comparative history shows
this third grade realization.

Köprülü family of viser had
interest in the western inventions but were highly selected of western
novelties. There were contacts with intellects from the west all the time.

Evilya’s four-dementional
world view.

1. cosmology, Irony, innovation
and social intolerance.

Far reaching innovation, social
transformation, political turmoil, and religious confusion

1.Innovation of scientific realities of the world.
Education.

2.The Islamic and Turkish army instead of old system
of meritocracy.

3.Political unity. Fractionalization.

4.Religious confirmation – Secularization and the
acceptance of the enlightenment.